Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah - not knowing what he said" (Luke 9:33 from Luke 9:28-36, (37-43a))
Just a moment
‘Just’ may signal an afterthought like ‘just a minute’, capturing a moment or it may herald an insertion akin to an interruption or intervention. The injection of the word ‘Selah’ in many of the Psalms comes to mind requesting us to stop, pause and reflect and may be a relation. ‘Just’ could be inspirational or in Peter’s case an example of speaking before thinking! Its unclear to me what ‘not knowing what he said’ means but the temptation to capture the special moment, seal it and prolong it (one option here) is surely understandable. Is this like capturing and pinning butterflies into cases? I have a word from God, an experience, a memory, in fact a collection of them, and store or display them as exhibits.
The balance of staying with and moving on, respecting yet letting go may be an aspect of TS Eliot’s line of poetry ‘We must be still, and still moving’. ‘Just’ may be a pivot word, resting or straddling two possible directions. It seems to hold us or situate us in this space, of contemplation and action say. It concerns practical and knotty decisions such as ‘will I wait or will I act?’, ‘shall I stay or shall I go?’, ‘shall we intervene or shall we hold back?’ There is perhaps resonance beyond personal and domestic settings to communal and international settings.
Threshold meditation
With a ‘just a moment’ in mind go to the threshold meditation.